Half-Life 2, the most anticipated PC game in recent years, has finally been released to the joy of eager gamers across the globe.

Although heavily kitted out with an ATI Mobility RADEON 9700 featuring 128MB of dedicated video memory, 1.5GHz Pentium M and half a gigabyte of PC2700 DDR, the Zephyra XT finished in the lower half for overall placement.

Dell's reputation at providing reasonably priced capable 'books shines through in the 510M - the cheapest notebook on test this month.

Technology companies losing out, says PwC survey.

IT execs looking to open source options, says Novell.

New technology claims to cuts storage array power and cooling costs in half.

Punch Technology's Punch Biz+ system features a 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, half gigabyte of PC3200 DDR-SDRAM, 52-speed CD-RW and a 17in monitor for under $2000 -- impressive pricing for this sort of spec machine.

The absolute epitome of 'feature-packed', the number of inclusions on this unit floored us. Its whopping 162 point feature score is over one-and-a-half times the average point score and comes on the back of its big feature line up.

Finally, will this be a reason to use Microsoft Live?

The first place to start tweaking is your BIOS. Enter your BIOS by hitting a key combination on system boot (look out for F1, Del etc). A word of warning though, the BIOS is a very powerful tool, but can cause damage if pushed the wrong way.

Apple’s ads may be funny, but they’re woefully inaccurate. Here we reveal dozens of reasons why the PC outclasses the Mac.

PC Authority takes a trip down computer memory lane and discovers just how PC technology has evolved... and how Microsoft and IBM nearly destroyed each other.

Half-decent for the money - but only half

Half-life to share its platform with Doom.

Half-life to share its platform with Doom.

Half-life to share its platform with Doom.

Almost half of Sydney's computer repair shops surveyed by ComputerCHOICE magazine are overcharging and incompetent.

More than half the IT contractors surveyed for a recent Australian study said they had access to training from their employers.

The best of the rest. Who's reporting what in the world of PCs, technology, science, broadband, sci-fi, products and more:

Intel has created fully functional 70Mb static random access memory (SRAM) chips with more than half a billion transistors using advanced nm process technology.